Hamlet's BlackBerry - Paperback

by William Powers (Author)

"A brilliant and thoughtful handbook for the Internet age." --Bob Woodward

"Incisive ... Refreshing ... Compelling." --Publishers Weekly

A crisp, passionately argued answer to the question that everyone who's grown dependent on digital devices is asking: Where's the rest of my life? Hamlet's BlackBerry challenges the widely held assumption that the more we connect through technology, the better. It's time to strike a new balance, William Powers argues, and discover why it's also important to disconnect. Part memoir, part intellectual journey, the book draws on the technological past and great thinkers such as Shakespeare and Thoreau. "Connectedness" has been considered from an organizational and economic standpoint--from Here Comes Everybody to Wikinomics--but Powers examines it on a deep interpersonal, psychological, and emotional level. Readers of Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point and Outliers will relish Hamlet's BlackBerry.

Front Jacket

Our computers and mobile devices do wonderful things for us. But they also impose a burden, making it harder for us to focus, do our best work, build strong relationships, and find the depth and fulfillment we crave.

How to solve this problem? Hamlet's BlackBerry argues that we just need a new way of thinking, an everyday philosophy for life with screens. William Powers sets out to solve what he calls the conundrum of connectedness. Reaching into the past--using his own life as laboratory and object lesson--he draws on some of history's most brilliant thinkers, from Plato to Shakespeare to Thoreau, to demonstrate that digital connectedness serves us best when it's balanced by its opposite, disconnectedness. Lively, original, and entertaining, Hamlet's BlackBerry will challenge you to rethink your digital life.

--Walter Isaacson, author of Einstein: His Life and Universe and Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

Back Jacket

Our computers and mobile devices do wonderful things for us. But they also impose a burden, making it harder for us to focus, do our best work, build strong relationships, and find the depth and fulfillment we crave.

How to solve this problem? Hamlet's BlackBerry argues that we just need a new way of thinking, an everyday philosophy for life with screens. William Powers sets out to solve what he calls the conundrum of connectedness. Reaching into the past--using his own life as laboratory and object lesson--he draws on some of history's most brilliant thinkers, from Plato to Shakespeare to Thoreau, to demonstrate that digital connectedness serves us best when it's balanced by its opposite, disconnectedness. Lively, original, and entertaining, Hamlet's BlackBerry will challenge you to rethink your digital life.